I am exhausted. The holidays were a whirlwind. First there was Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the New Year. I knew life would be a lot more work when I had children but I never factored in the holidays.

For Halloween we had to schedule the babies costumes, the trick or treat schedule, and pictures of course. My baby, Caesar is not even one year old. I can’t imagine how much work it will in the upcoming years.

Thanksgiving was even more hectic. I wanted it to be extra special so I cooked the traditional meal from scratch. I found it much harder to do with a little one. It was so much fun watching Caesar in his Thanksgiving outfit trying stuffing and making a mess out of the cranberry sauce.

Before Thanksgiving was even over the holiday shopping started. This year instead of Black Friday, shopping begun on Thanksgiving evening. I headed out to the store to get Caesar a motorized car for his birthday in February. That was the only thing I purchased. I waited in the store for about two hours for the sale to begin. Luckily since I was only purchasing the one item, it only took me five minutes to check out. There were tons of people there getting Christmas presents. I wondered if everyone else was tired as I was. I didn’t go to bed until 3 a.m. on Thursday, cooked all day, cleaned, and went shopping. It was a busy day.

Preparing for Christmas was equally as hard. Baby proofing a Christmas tree is pretty much impossible I decided. We put up the tree but didn’t let the baby anywhere near it unless we were holding him.

We decided not to do any shopping for the baby since he would not remember his first Christmas. We bought an ornament representing the holiday for him and that was it. However shopping for both sets of his grandparents was a big task. Usually, we can get away with perfume or a hat for Christmas presents. Not this year. This year everything was special. I made shadow boxes for each grandmother. Each one included a pair of the babies shoes and pictures. It took a very long time cutting the pictures and decorating everything. I got my dad a tie that was printed with a picture of the baby since his birthday is also in December. It was very special and unique.

As the New Year rang in, I was amazed at how much my life had changed over the past year. How every aspect of my life revolves my baby. It is a lot of work but oh so worth it.

As I start this year with my family I hope to just cherish each moment just like this year. I hope the same for you.